Heineken®’s Whisper Mode Social Experiment Tests Fans’ Ability To Watch Football Quietly

May 5, 2026

For many football fans, late‑night matches usually come with an unspoken tension: keep the noise down or wake up the whole house trying. ‘Whisper Mode’ is a playful social experiment designed to see if football fans can experience the intensity of the game at a lower volume. (They can’t. But it’s fun to try.) Created in partnership with SuperSport, Heineken®’s Whispering Commentator gives fans a quieter way to follow the match.

Voiced by Lemi Loco and available via the language settings on SuperSport, it delivers all the tension, drama and build-up of the UEFA Champions League semi-finals, just in a whisper.

Will fans stay quiet during a last-minute goal? Probably not. And that’s exactly the point.

‘Late‑night football is one of those shared experiences that brings people together, but it also comes with very real compromises,’ said Warrick Wyngaard, Marketing Communication Manager at Heineken® South Africa. ‘Whisper Mode was born from that tension. It’s about giving fans a solution that lets them stay part of the moment.’

The launch builds on Heineken®’s global ‘Fans Have More Friends’ platform which celebrates how shared fandom fosters connection, both in and out of the game. Whether it’s a last-minute winner or a controversial call, those moments are rarely experienced in silence.

Off the screen, Heineken teamed up with Checkers Sixty60 to tap into how fans prepare for match nights, from last‑minute orders and shared snacks to spontaneous plans right before kick‑off. Leading this moment is actor Kwenzo Pholoba, whose involvement in the campaign representing a new generation of fans and the real, relatable ways they experience the game.

Ultimately, it’s not about how quietly you watch, but who you watch with, because the real power of the game lies in the moments fans share. When fans have more friends, they make more noise. Because football was never meant to be enjoyed in silence.

HEINEKEN
https://www.heinekenbeverages.co.za

Influencer Marketing In Africa Scales Through Precision, Not Duplication

Modern Marketing

May 4, 2026

Influencer Marketing In Africa Scales Through Precision, Not Duplication — Xoliswa Mkize, Humanz.

Xoliswa Mkize, Senior Client Success Manager at Humanz, says working on fintech influencer campaigns across Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, and Zambia has reinforced a simple but critical lesson: influencer marketing across African markets does not scale through duplication, it scales through precision.

Pan-African marketing strategies are often built on the assumption that Africa can be approached as a single scalable market. In reality, brands quickly discover that while markets may share geographic proximity, the way influence works within them can differ significantly.

While campaign objectives such as awareness, engagement or app adoption may remain consistent, the drivers of influence vary across markets. Language, cultural context, trust signals, platform ecosystems, and consumer behaviour all shape how audiences engage with content. What appears to be a single campaign in strategy presentations, can perform very differently in practice.

Too often, influencer marketing is evaluated through visibility metrics alone. Reach and engagement can signal awareness, but they do not necessarily translate into meaningful action. And in financial services, where brands are asking people to trust, download, and transact, those inefficiencies do not just affect engagement. They affect growth.

Influencer marketing across African markets is not simply about visibility. It is about behavioural influence. Behavioural influence refers to campaigns designed to drive measurable actions, downloads, registrations, clicks, and transactions. Achieving this requires identifying which creators drive these behaviours, and which content formats and platforms convert attention into adoption. Without this level of precision, campaigns do not scale impact, instead they scale inefficiency.

What working across these markets has demonstrated is that influence in Africa requires respect: respect for culture, context, data and the people on the other side of the screen. It requires moving beyond surface-level metrics, and asking harder questions about what is actually driving behaviour.

It also requires sitting with performance dashboards long enough to see patterns others might miss. In practice, this means looking beyond reach to identify which creators generate the highest share of campaign clicks, which platforms deliver the most efficient cost per action, and which content formats sustain audience engagement. Analysing these signals market by market often reveals where influence is translating into real user behaviour; and where it is not. Just as importantly, it requires the discipline to recognise when strategies that work in one market do not produce the same results elsewhere.

This data-led approach is particularly critical for fintech brands operating in emerging markets. Adoption in this category is built on trust. Influencer marketing can accelerate that trust, but only when campaigns are grounded in local insight and supported by strong data. The ability to analyse creator performance and audience behaviour across markets allows brands to scale their campaigns, while remaining relevant within each territory.

To unlock the full potential of influencer marketing across African markets, brands must move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and adopt a more disciplined, data-led strategy. This means selecting creators based on their ability to drive real outcomes not just visibility, continuously optimising campaigns at a market level, and using performance data to guide decisions in real time. When approached this way, influencer marketing evolves from a communications tactic into a scalable growth driver that delivers both local relevance and measurable impact.

HUMANZ
www.humanz.com

Key Takeouts For Brands From Dentsu’s Landmark Brand Reset Report

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Dentsu’s Brand Reset report involved one of the biggest advertising effectiveness studies ever conducted and is the first study to link attention to both brand equity and sales. Built by Dentsu in partnership with Kantar and Lumen, it draws on 10 next-gen platforms plus Linear TV, involving 20 brands across nine verticals, with 40,000 respondents across the US and UK.

Cheryl Ingram, founder and CEO of The Digital Media Collective (TDMC), said this report should act as a wakeup call for marketers and brand managers across South Africa. ‘The core argument is simple: brands have been chasing cheap clicks at the expense of brand building, and now there’s hard data to prove why that is a mistake,’ said Ingram.

Ingram shares her top five key findings from the report and what they mean for brands:

1. Digital video builds brands long-term, not just short-term

The data confirms that digital video is not merely a short-term performance tool. Short-form formats deliver superior efficiency, achieving a lower cost per 1% long-term lift than Linear TV. ‘That kills the old ‘TV builds brands, digital drives clicks’ narrative,’ said Ingram.

2. One single ad exposure has lasting impact

The industry study found that a single brand exposure is projected to generate between 1% and 5% more sales in the long-term over the next three years, compared to no exposure. Each exposure also has a short-term effect of between 2% and 15%. ‘That is a powerful argument for quality over quantity. The brands bold enough to commit to that truth today will be the ones defining their categories tomorrow,’ said Ingram.

3. Connected TV is now nearly as powerful as Linear TV

Connected TV platforms deliver a 3.21% long-term sales lift, compared with 4.43% for Linear TV. The gap is closing fast, and audience behaviour has fundamentally shifted.

4. Voluntary attention beats forced attention

Advertising on skippable formats that succeeds in holding attention can have a huge brand-building effect if attention is sustained. ‘While skippable formats have lower impact when viewed for one to two seconds, their impact surpasses non-skippable ones if people choose to keep watching. What this really means is: earn the attention, do not force it,’ said Ingram.

5. More attention isn’t always better: 20 seconds is the sweet spot

More attention reaps greater brand-building effects. ‘However, after 20 seconds, the study shows that attention delivers little additional impact,’ said Ingram. ‘This calls into question the assumption that more attention is always better.’

Ingram stressed that brands need to adapt quickly to catch up with their audiences, who have already moved. She uses the example of coverage for the upcoming FIFA World Cup in South Africa to highlight just how quickly things are shifting.

From 2010 to 2022, SuperSport held exclusive pay-TV rights to the FIFA World Cup, but for the 2026 championship, a streaming platform that did not even exist in South Africa 12 months ago now has also secured the right to broadcast. ‘SportyTV secured all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in South Africa, a deal that was confirmed on 13 April 2026,’ said Ingram. ‘And on 8 January 2026, TikTok became FIFA’s first-ever Preferred Platform for the World Cup, meaning South African fans could be watching matches content on a short-form social app, not a decoder.’

With Bafana Bafana back in the World Cup for the first time since 2010 and the South African team playing one of the host nations, Mexico, in the opening game on 11 June, Ingram has a stark warning for brands: ‘Your audience will be watching on a screen you might not have planned for. And while no one is saying TV is dead, the facts are the facts.’

What do brands need to do? First, said Ingram, they need to urgently scrutinise their media plans to ensure they are keeping pace with the changes. ‘They also need to make sure that their agency has the tools and expertise at their disposal to adapt and evolve.’

“This report points out that for brands striving for sustainable growth through video, the era of focusing on short-term results through cheap clicks and performance outcomes are over. It highlights that in this Algorithmic Era, the winners will be those who understand the necessity of balancing brand and performance investment so that the brand can thrive in both the short and long-term,’ said Ingram.

TDMC
https://tdmc.co.za

Walmart And Google Partner With Fluence Africa To Empower Creators

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Walmart And Google Partner With Fluence Africa To Empower Creators

Walmart and Google partnered with Fluence Africa to host a first-of-its-kind YouTube Creator Training Session in South Africa. The full-day session brought together both emerging and established creators for an immersive experience designed to equip them with the skills, tools and confidence needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

At its core, the initiative reflects a shared vision between Walmart and Google: to empower creators not only as storytellers, but as entrepreneurs capable of driving meaningful engagement, influence and economic impact.

This collaboration signals a clear shift away from traditional retail marketing approaches, embracing a ‘YouTube-first’ strategy that prioritises authentic, long-form storytelling, short-form video and live engagement. By hosting the training inside the Walmart Fourways store (a working retail environment) Walmart and Google created a unique opportunity for creators to bridge the gap between digital content and physical commerce.

Participants were encouraged to view the store not just as a retail space, but as a dynamic content creation environment, one where everyday shopping experiences can be transformed into compelling, relatable narratives that resonate with audiences online.

‘This workshop is the first of its kind on the African continent and showcases the value of YouTube as a platform for Creators and Omnichannel Retailers like Walmart,’ said Ricky Hendricks, Retail Industry Manager at Google and Walmart South Africa Partnership Lead.

Jean Ochse, Digital Marketing Executive at Massmart, said, ‘Hosting this YouTube creator workshop in-store is a practical demonstration of our omni-channel strategy and focus on community engagement. We relished this opportunity to open our stores as spaces for creation and connection because today, discovery can happen anywhere, from a creator’s content to a customer standing in our aisles. Significantly, this experience was also grounded in our commitment to Everyday Low Prices and offered an opportunity for creators to engage with our approach of consistently providing low prices without relying on promotional events.’

The session was facilitated by Fluence Africa, an influencer marketing and creator development agency in Africa, and the strategic partner behind Walmart’s influencer initiatives in South Africa. Having supported the launch of Walmart’s first three local stores, Fluence Africa brought its deep understanding of both the retail landscape and the creator economy to the initiative.

Built around Fluence Africa’s signature methodology of Learn, Be Inspired, Create Content, Go Live, the training ensured that creators did not just absorb information, but actively applied it in real time.

‘It is truly exciting to work with partners who are open to exploring a YouTube-first approach in their content strategy,’ said Jolene Roelofse, Founder of Fluence Africa. ‘Walmart and Google are showing real vision by investing in the creators who will ultimately amplify their brand stories far beyond the physical footprint of a store. We are effectively turning retail spaces into creative playgrounds.’

The workshop was intentionally designed to move beyond theory, offering participants a full-cycle learning experience within a single session:

– Learn: creators received insights into YouTube’s latest tools, platform updates and algorithm trends, guided by Google experts.
– Be inspired: strategy sessions explored how to turn everyday retail moments into engaging, story-driven content.
– Create content: participants produced content live within the Fourways store, using its aisles, products and spaces as their backdrop.
– Go live: creators put their learnings into action immediately, publishing and engaging with audiences in real time.

This practical approach ensured that attendees left not only with new knowledge, but with tangible content assets and a deeper understanding of how to build sustainable digital brands.

For both Walmart and Google, the initiative forms part of a broader commitment to supporting Africa’s growing creator ecosystem. As digital platforms continue to unlock new economic opportunities, the ability for creators to monetise their content, build communities and influence purchasing behaviour is becoming increasingly significant.

YouTube, as the world’s largest video-sharing platform, plays a central role in this evolution, offering creators the ability to build long-term, scalable careers through content. By combining this with Walmart’s global retail reach and infrastructure, the partnership demonstrates how brands can actively contribute to creator success while driving innovation in their own marketing strategies.

The result is a mutually beneficial ecosystem where creators gain access to tools, education and opportunities, while brands tap into authentic storytelling and audience trust.

WALMART
https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/south-africa

GOOGLE
https://ads.google.com/

FLUENCE AFRICA
https://fluence.africa/

Reimagining Billboards As Public Art

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Reimagining Billboards As Public Art — Kelly Brazier, Halo Advertising.

Kelly Brazier, Creative Director at Halo Advertising, says a billboard is one of the largest canvases in the public realm, yet outdoor advertising often behaves as though it deserves attention simply because it exists in shared space. In reality, the creative choices made by the agency team determine whether it clutters the visual landscape or contributes meaningfully to it.

In South Africa, and particularly in financial services, advertising is often dominated by dense messaging, stock photography, and a certain corporate sameness. The billboard streetscape reflects this. When we began working on RMB’s new brand platform and campaign, we saw an opportunity to challenge that convention. The campaign proposition is simple: great ideas rarely exist in isolation. They grow in the company of other people, other ideas, and different perspectives. The platform of Ideas Love Company shaped not only the writing and art direction of the campaign, but also how it would live in the world.

RMB has long been a national patron of the arts, supporting the talent that shapes South Africa’s cultural landscape. Extending this support into its advertising felt like a natural progression, using the opportunity to turn billboards across the country into a kind of public gallery.

Instead of taking a traditional approach with conventional corporate imagery, we collaborated with South African artist Koos Groenewald to create a series of 50 distinctive, hand-drawn illustrations. Working with Groenewald was not just an aesthetic choice, but a cultural one. Allowing his distinct voice to shape the campaign ensured the work felt authentic to both the brand and the intent of the Ideas Love Company platform.

Inspired by the editorial cartoons of publications like The New Yorker, the visual language rewards attention rather than demanding it. Each illustration is paired with a standout headline, creating a playful world of visual storytelling that appeals to the curiosity of the passer-by. This allowed the campaign to function more like a series of public artworks than traditional billboards.

In outdoor spaces where visual clutter has become the norm, restraint can be a powerful creative decision. This campaign sits lightly within its environment. A person walking a balloon dog to accompany the line Think Out the Park, for example, transforms a fleeting moment of attention into something quietly contemplative.

Across large-format static sites and animated digital placements, the campaign introduced small moments of whimsy into the everyday. A drive home in traffic might reveal a briefcase-carrying astronaut floating away or a row of ducks swimming by. Each piece was carefully curated, decision by decision, to create a gentle antidote to the monotony of the daily commute and reimagine what marketing can look like in a public space.

HALO
https://www.brandhalo.co.za/

The New Shape Of Men’s Health Conversations

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

The New Shape Of Mens Health Conversations

Darren Morris, CEO of Lucky Hustle, says for many years, men’s health has been framed through a narrow and highly visible lens. Strength, endurance, discipline and physical appearance have dominated the narrative, creating a version of wellbeing that is easy to measure but incomplete in practice. If a man looked healthy and performed well, it was widely assumed that everything else in his life was functioning as it should.

That assumption is increasingly at odds with the reality on the ground in South Africa.

The country is facing a mental health crisis that sits quietly behind the visible markers of performance. Depression affects a significant portion of the population, with estimates suggesting that more than a quarter of South Africans experience depressive symptoms at some point. At the same time, access to care remains uneven, stigma remains deeply embedded, and many men continue to avoid seeking help altogether, according to an Employee Assistance Professionals Association of South Africa (EAPASA) study.
The consequences of this are stark, particularly for men.

In South Africa, men account for the overwhelming majority of suicide deaths. Of the more than 13,700 recorded suicides, over 10,800 were men, which translates to roughly three-quarters of all cases. Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death among young people, and the country’s overall suicide rate places it among the highest globally and on the African continent. These are not abstract statistics. They point to a systemic gap between how men are expected to show up and the support structures available to them. This is where the conversation around men’s health begins to shift.

What is emerging is a more complex and far more honest understanding of health, one that recognises the interplay between physical performance and the often invisible pressures that shape it. Increasingly, men are starting to acknowledge that how they think, how they process stress and how they carry responsibility are not secondary concerns. These factors sit at the centre of how they function day to day, influencing not only their mental state but their physical outcomes as well.

The shift is surfacing in conversations that feel less curated and more reflective of real life with platforms like The Hustle IRL, hosted by broadcast veteran Samm Marshall, technology commentator Akhram Mohamed and myself, providing a useful window into this evolution. The podcast does not position itself as a health platform, yet it consistently surfaces the realities that underpin men’s wellbeing. Discussions move naturally between money, fatherhood, ambition, discipline, relationships and mental resilience, revealing how deeply interconnected these elements are in shaping a man’s life.

This interconnectedness signals a fundamental shift in how health is being understood. It is no longer something that can be compartmentalised into isolated categories. Instead, it reflects a system in which each part influences the other, often in ways that are not immediately visible.

The inaugural episode featuring Chris ‘The Wolf’ Thompson brings this into sharp focus. While the conversation begins with boxing, it quickly moves beyond the physical demands of the sport to explore the psychological realities that accompany it. Thompson speaks to the isolation that comes with competition, the emotional volatility of both victory and defeat, and the discipline required to continue operating in an environment defined by constant pressure. These are not experiences unique to professional athletes. They resonate with men operating in high performance environments across business, entrepreneurship and everyday life.

For a long time, the emphasis in men’s health has been placed on outputs. The expectation has been to lift more, achieve more and push harder. What is now coming into focus are the inputs that make those outputs sustainable over time. The quality of rest, the ability to manage stress, the stability of one’s financial situation and the strength of personal relationships all play a critical role in determining long-term wellbeing.

Taken together, these factors highlight an important reality. The modern man is not managing a series of isolated challenges. He is managing a system in which each element is interconnected and mutually reinforcing.

What makes this moment particularly significant is that men are beginning to articulate these experiences more openly, even as the data shows how urgent the issue has become. South Africa’s high suicide rates, the disproportionate impact on men, and the widespread prevalence of untreated mental health conditions all point to the same conclusion. The traditional model of men’s health is no longer sufficient.

The conversation has already moved. It now includes how men respond to pressure, how they navigate responsibility and how they recover from challenges that are not purely physical. It reflects a more holistic understanding of wellbeing that aligns more closely with the realities men are experiencing.

Effie Invites Brands To Shape The Next Generation Of Marketing Talent

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Effie Invites Brands To Shape The Next Generation Of Marketing Talent

Brands looking to make a meaningful contribution to the future of marketing are being invited to sponsor a brief for the next Effie College programme, a platform that gives students the opportunity to work on real business challenges using effectiveness-led thinking.

It also equips them to learn the craft of case writing through the globally recognised Effie Framework for Marketing Effectiveness, a proven tool that embeds key principles of effectiveness into marketing practice. The call forms part of a broader effort to grow Effie College’s impact, strengthen its industry position, and deepen collaboration between brands and emerging talent. Modern Marketing is a proud media partner of the Effie Awards South Africa.

For sponsoring brands, the opportunity is both practical and strategic. It means setting a real business challenge, engaging with finalists in live pitches, accessing structured, effectiveness-led thinking, and creating meaningful connections with future talent. Effie manages the full competition lifecycle, from brief refinement and student engagement to judging, finalist selection and awards, allowing partner brands to focus on the challenge itself and the value gained in return. The brief positions this as a high-impact partnership for brands that want to support the next generation while also benefiting from fresh marketing perspectives.

The call follows an extremely successful inaugural programme in 2025. Sponsored by Nedbank, the YouthX Challenge attracted more than 400 students from four leading South African institutions, UCT, UJ, NWU and the AAA School of Advertising, all working on a live brief under the same effectiveness-led principles associated with Effie. The 2025 winning team was Team Stargazers from UCT.

Building on that momentum, the 2026 programme already has participation from UCT, UJ, NWU, Vega and AAA, signalling continued interest from academia and reinforcing Effie College’s role as a bridge between the classroom and the principles of effectiveness in modern marketing.

‘Effie College is about real impact,’ said Gillian Rightford, Executive Director of the ACA and for Effie South Africa. ‘It gives brands the opportunity to put an actual business challenge in front of bright young minds and see how the next generation responds with rigour, creativity and commercial thinking. For sponsoring brands, that means fresh perspectives and early access to future talent. For the wider industry, it means helping shape marketers who understand effectiveness from the outset.’

Brands interested in sponsoring a brief for the 2026 Effie College programme are encouraged to engage with the ACA by 31 May 2026. Student registration opens in July, the programme runs from August to September, judging takes place in September and October, and winners will be announced later in the year.

EFFIE SOUTH AFRICA
https://effie.org/partners/south-africa/

Value Is No Longer Defined By What Agencies Produce, But By What They Deliver

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Value Is No Longer Defined By What Agencies Produce, But By What They Deliver — Neill Robertson, Penquin.

The agency-client relationship is undergoing a radical transformation in 2026. The days of ‘creative for creative’s sake’ have officially been replaced by a demand for uncompromising accountability. With every cent of marketing spend under scrutiny, the definition of ‘value’ has shifted from the volume of output to the velocity of impact.

According to Neill Robertson, Client Service Director at Penquin, the modern client is no longer paying for agency presence, they are paying for agency performance.

The Death Of The ‘Supplier’ Model

The most significant shift in 2026 is the rejection of the traditional supplier-vendor dynamic. Clients are increasingly moving away from agencies that simply ‘take orders’ and execute briefs without question.

‘Clients want partners, not suppliers,’ Robertson explained. ‘They want agencies who understand their business as deeply as they do and can add value far beyond the initial brief. The most successful relationships are those where the agency feels empowered to challenge the client’s thinking rather than just executing instructions. If you are not contributing to the strategic solution of a business problem, you are simply a commodity.’

The Accountability Mandate

The ‘fluff’ of traditional advertising, excessive layers, vague metrics and aesthetic-only campaigns is the first thing being cut from 2026 budgets. Robertson noted that if work does not drive measurable value, it is now considered an expense rather than an investment.

‘In 2026, clients aren’t looking for more agency; they are looking for more impact,’ Robertson said. ‘If your work does not consistently move the needle, it becomes very easy to replace. There is a growing, non-negotiable expectation that agencies move beyond delivering creative campaigns and instead contribute meaningfully to solving business problems and driving measurable results. If it does not drive value, it will be questioned, or worse, completely cut from the mix.’

What Clients Will Not Pay For

As agility becomes a competitive advantage, clients are identifying and eliminating the ‘hidden costs’ of traditional agency models. Robertson added that in 2026, there are certain things clients refuse to pay for. This includes overcomplicated processes, bloated teams, duplicated roles, and work with no clear purpose or measurable outcome. ‘There is far less tolerance for inefficiency,’ he said. ‘If something does not add value, it is being cut.’

Instead, clients are investing in agencies that can deliver lean, effective solutions, combining strategic thinking, creative excellence and measurable impact. ‘Agencies that can strip away the noise and provide clarity and speed will be the ones that survive the budget reallocations of the next fiscal year,’ Robertson continued.

He warned that agencies stuck in old ways of working, excessive reporting, slow decision-making, and output-focused deliverables without clear business value, will find it increasingly difficult to retain clients in 2026.

Ultimately, Robertson believes this shift presents an opportunity for agencies willing to evolve. ‘This is not about doing less, it is about doing what matters,’ he said. ‘The agencies that will thrive are the ones that can connect creativity to commercial impact, operate with speed and clarity, and show up as true partners to their clients’ businesses.’

As the industry continues to recalibrate, one thing is clear: in 2026, value is no longer defined by what agencies produce, but by what they deliver.

PENQUIN
https://www.penquin.co.za

AI Is Changing The Production Process

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

AI Is Changing The Production Process — Garon Campbell, Breadbin Productions.

Garon Campbell, Founder and Director, Breadbin Productions, discusses why AI prompting is pulling editors upstream. Most editors recognise this pattern, even if it is rarely called out directly: the footage arrives, the first assembly begins, and somewhere along the early cuts, it becomes clear that something is not working in the way it was expected to.

The pacing feels slightly off, the tone does not fully land, and a scene that looked convincing on paper struggles to hold together on screen. Nothing is obviously broken, but the piece as a whole lacks cohesion.

At that point, the work shifts into adjustment. Tightening, restructuring, removing, and reworking, all in an effort to shape something coherent out of material that was never fully aligned to begin with. For a long time, this has been accepted as part of the editing craft. In reality, it is not a creative problem, it is a process problem. To be more specific, it is a timing problem.

Editing Has Been Happening Too Late

In most production workflows, alignment does not happen in a single, unified moment. Instead it happens in stages, often across different teams and at different times, with each group responding to a slightly different version of the same idea.

Scripts are approved before visuals are properly understood, tone is discussed, but not experienced, and decisions are made sequentially, without a shared reference point that allows everyone to respond to the same thing in the same way.

By the time footage reaches post-production, many of those decisions are already fixed, which limits how much can realistically be changed. This is why editors often find themselves (frustratingly) solving problems that did not originate in the edit.

Prompting Changes Where The Work Happens

AI does not solve this by producing perfect outputs, and that is not where its real value lies. What it does is make thinking visible much earlier, giving teams something concrete to respond to before anything is locked in.

A prompt produces an output that, while not final, is tangible enough to interrogate. It allows teams to see how an idea plays out, understand how it feels, and identify where it holds together and where it starts to break down.

This immediately exposes gaps, removes ambiguity, and surfaces weak decisions before they become embedded in the production process. Crucially, all of this happens before production begins.

This is part of a broader shift across AI-driven workflows, where correction is no longer something reserved for post-production, but something that is pulled forward into the earliest stages of development.

Editors Are No Longer Waiting At The End

When editors are brought into this earlier stage, their role changes in a meaningful and practical way. They are no longer responding to material that has already been created, but are instead shaping it while it is still fluid and open to change.

The core instincts remain exactly the same. Understanding structure, rhythm, pacing, and narrative clarity. knowing what to keep, what to remove, what is missing, and what does not belong. What changes is when those instincts are applied.

Instead of working around decisions, editors influence them. Instead of refining intent after the fact, they help define it from the outset. And because this happens earlier in the process, the result is not only faster, but significantly cleaner, with fewer compromises and far less need for rework later on.

Clarity, Not Speed, Defines The Story

AI undeniably accelerates the process. Iterations that once took days can now be explored within hours, and multiple creative directions can be tested without committing to a shoot.

However, speed is not the most important shift taking place. Clarity is.

When ideas are made visible early and tested before execution, fewer assumptions carry through to production, and far fewer surprises emerge in post. The edit becomes what it was always intended to be, a stage for refinement and strengthening, rather than a point of rescue.

The Role Doesn’t Disappear. It Sharpens

There is a growing perception that prompting may reduce the role of the editor. In practice, the opposite is happening.

As AI introduces more options and variation, the need for judgment becomes more critical, not less. The ability to determine what works, what resonates, and what ultimately feels right remains a human responsibility. AI can generate endlessly, but it can’t decide. It does not understand pacing in a human sense, and it cannot recognise when something lands with the intended impact.

That responsibility still sits with the editor. The difference is that it now comes in earlier in the process, where it has a completely different influence on what we see at the end of the process.

What Is Actually Changing

Essentially, editing is simply being repositioned. For years, it has operated at the end of the production process, shaping what has already been created and working within the constraints of earlier decisions. Now, it is moving closer to the beginning, where it can shape what gets created in the first place.

Prompting has not removed the editor, it has made their role visible sooner. And, that is where the beauty lies: it has made them more central to the process than they have ever been.

BREADBIN PRODUCTIONS
https://breadbinproductions.co.za/

Carling Black Label’s Campaign Looks At The Champions Behind The Champions

Modern Marketing

April 30, 2026

Carling Black Labels Campaign Looks At The Champions Behind The Champions

As anticipation builds toward the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Carling Black Label’s campaign explores a simple but powerful idea. Every moment of greatness on the pitch is made possible by individuals whose work happens long before the whistle blows.

From those who prepare the field of play to those who ensure every detail is in place, these are the people who quietly set the stage for champions to thrive.

This thinking builds on the brand’s long-standing association with champion fans, but shifts the lens. It moves beyond support in the stands to recognise those who embody the same discipline, consistency and commitment associated with high performance, often without recognition.

Across South Africa, this mindset is everywhere. In stadiums, in control rooms, across early mornings and late nights, there are people whose contribution may not be visible, but is always essential. Their role is not defined by the spotlight, but by the standard they hold themselves to, day in and day out.

The campaign brings this idea to life through a film that places these individuals at the centre of the story. Instead of focusing only on the players, it lingers on the moments that happen long before kick-off: groundsmen carefully marking the pitch, hands tightening goal nets into place, stadium staff preparing stands that will soon be filled with energy. These are the details that often go unnoticed, yet they form the foundation for everything that follows. By drawing a clear line between this preparation and what unfolds on the pitch, the story reinforces a simple truth: behind every moment of greatness are the champions behind the champions.

The storytelling is intentionally understated. There are no exaggerated moments, just a steady build of detail, effort and precision. It is in these moments that the idea becomes clear, not as a concept, but as a lived reality.

Kerryn Greenleaf, Brand Director for Carling Black Label, said the intention was to recognise a group of champions who rarely receive the same level of attention. ‘There are so many people who operate with the same discipline and commitment we associate with champions but do so without recognition. This was about shifting the focus and shining the spotlight and making sure those individuals are indeed recognised for the champions that they are.’

The work was brought to life in collaboration with Romance Films, under the direction of Nthato Mokgata, whose approach leans into authenticity and real, human moments rather than spectacle.

As the global spotlight turns to the FIFA World Cup, the message is clear: greatness is never achieved in isolation. Behind every moment on the pitch is a network of individuals whose consistency and commitment make it all possible.

CARLING BLACK LABEL
www.carlingblacklabel.co.za

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